Thick-layer fuses are distinguished from customary wire fuses primarily in that the wire-like fusible conductor is replaced by a thick-film fusible conductor. The manner of operation of a fuse of this kind also continues to lie in ensuring galvanic separation if a short circuit or if defined current overloading arises.
Problematic in the manufacture of such thick-layer fuses is first of all the maintenance of the tolerances which are set with regard to the fuse characteristics. This is made more difficult by the fact that the actual fuse behaviour can only be directly checked with respect to a respective thick-layer fuse when the destruction of a fuse occurs. Moreover, the respectively obtained fuse characteristics are dependent to a large degree in particular on the tolerance of the layer thicknesses and also on the tolerance which arises with respect to the width of the thick-layer fusible conductor. The maintenance of reproducible fuse characteristics is accordingly no longer straightforwardly possible when smaller fuse structures are to be realised.